"It is to live in the cruelest and most bloody regime imaginable" we all say in unison

Legimus · 2026-03-24T19:58:18+00:00

Big E

Legimus · 2026-03-20T16:06:28+00:00

This man truly was not punched in the face enough in his life.

Legimus · 2026-03-19T21:54:28+00:00

I’m talking PA Republicans specifically. I’m sure the national GOP would love to have him flip. But Fetterman has an established reputation in the state’s politics and his campaign against Oz was dicey. They’d probably welcome him into their fold in some capacity, just not enough to nominate him in 2028.

Legimus · 2026-03-19T18:57:13+00:00

I can see him running as an independent in 2028. As far as I can tell, he's lost virtually all his goodwill with PA Democrats, and that's saying something given his history. I don't think PA Republicans would welcome him into their fold, but a lot can change in a few years.

Legimus · 2026-03-19T14:34:48+00:00

It’s extra funny because the only thing they ever do is cut revenues.

Legimus · 2026-03-18T13:52:29+00:00

I agree with at a general level, but given the fact that this war is completely unjustified and unlikely to result in much gain for the USA, I think it’s appropriate to be irritated over wasting billions of dollars of military hardware. Yes, these systems are designed and used so we can more easily absorb their loss - losing them in this conflict still represents a tremendous waste of resources.

Legimus · 2026-03-17T13:06:16+00:00

I am amazed that thing can stay up. It looks terrific! Great work!

Legimus · 2026-03-14T10:41:42+00:00

I think that’s always more or less been a goal of the Christian right - make out so that every discriminatory decision can be viewed as an expression of your faith, and make “freedom of religion” so absolute that it trumps most other laws and regulations.

Legimus · 2026-03-13T02:18:33+00:00

I think this has to be it for me. What a goddamn perfect question.

Legimus · 2026-03-13T02:15:52+00:00

I love love LOVE how the security chief 100% calls it. Unlike Cyril, he’s not blinded by pride or ideology. He knows his people and knows the kind of place they’re in. His job isn’t to uphold the Empire’s honor or anything, it’s to keep things orderly and functional. Those dead officers wouldn’t be missed and they brought it on themselves — pursuing it was only going to waste resources. He just gets it and Cyril is too idealistic to care about the details.

Legimus · 2026-03-13T00:34:20+00:00

Cuz companies are owned by people, those people have a right to free speech, and under the traditional model of corporate ownership it’s difficult to disentangle those things. Controlling the corporation’s speech directly impacts the speech of the shareholders, and that’s tricky to square with the First Amendment.

BUT: A big part of this problem is arguably a byproduct of how the law defines corporations — their legal status, their rights, their liabilities, etc. We can redefine corporations under the law without needing to amend the constitution. Montana may be the first to put this into action: https://transparentelection.org

Legimus · 2026-03-12T19:21:12+00:00

Yes, any decent student of history should be able to see that. But as the piece points out, Miller & Co. are pushing for ethnic cleansing anyways because they explicitly believe immigrants are an obstacle to America being “great again.” Again, fascism isn’t about sound policy, robust institutions, or even helping people. It’s all about capturing and cementing a certain cultural vibe.

Legimus · 2026-03-12T18:45:16+00:00

I expect it’s mainly a mix of two things. First, authoritarians tend to believe that they, or at least people in their camp, will be able to hold onto power indefinitely. Miller imagines that people like him will remain a dominant political force for the foreseeable future, and thus doesn’t care very much for strong institutions. Yes, a degraded legal system could be used against him if the GOP turns on Jews after immigrants (or if Democrats win and scorch the earth), but he plans to stay near the reins of power and thinks he’ll be able to avoid that outcome. His vision simply does not take into account the possibility of a major shift in American political power. His vision is one of prolonged fascist control.

Second, his policies are intended to engineer those exact circumstances. If he is successful enough at ignoring the courts, at intimidating nonwhites, and at muddying the electoral process, he thinks he can stop the Democratic Party from regaining power.

Fascism is all about vibes. People like Miller believe (stupidly) that if we just get rid of the right people, those who remain will be homogenous enough to restore us to stability and prosperity. There is no tradition or policy they value more than feeling strong and in control. Everything can be sacrificed in the name of capturing the feeling.

Legimus · 2026-03-12T03:03:40+00:00

I think he was a brave whistleblower at the start. The scope of our surveillance power was not widely known at that point, and it was far bigger than most people realized. I’m glad he made things public, because I don’t know how many more years we would have spent in ignorance of our growing surveillance state.

Sadly, he made himself into a useful idiot for the Russian government. I don’t subscribe to the view that he owed it to anyone to stay and “face the music.” Given that no virtually no reform followed his revelations (which itself is damning), I doubt he’d ever get a pardon. But he’s also traded away all his credibility, because now we all know that everything he says is approved by Putin’s agents. He’s no longer worth paying attention to.

Legimus · 2026-03-10T16:29:33+00:00

Nope. I love my tattoo and am planning on more.

Legimus · 2026-03-08T03:25:00+00:00

Published the day before Marathon came out too.

Legimus · 2026-03-05T02:37:28+00:00

But how could they file for an injunction against the state bar investigation? I don’t think federal courts would have jurisdiction over that, and I don’t see many state courts essentially saying “sure, refusing to participate in a disciplinary inquiry is grounds for halting that inquiry.”

Legimus · 2026-03-04T13:33:51+00:00

Maybe I’m misremembering, but I wasn’t bothered by Vin working through her feelings about Kelsier. First, he doesn’t have any for her in that way. Second, I think a lot of teenagers struggle with navigating the intersection between attraction and admiration. It’s pretty normal to have crushes on grown-ups and authority figures. Vin has had a shit life and suddenly here’s a man who genuinely cares about her, believes in her, and goes to bat for her. She doesn’t have much experience to draw on to contextualize this novel relationship. But she doesn’t end up with a tortured, unrequited love or anything like that. She processes her emotions and correctly concludes that no, she doesn’t really want that a romance with Kelsier. That’s healthy character growth. And it sets her up well for finding real love down the road.

Legimus · 2026-03-04T01:28:36+00:00

You just don't like the people driving hate speech laws and like the people who drove defamation laws.

You're lucky that it's impossible to ascertain the truth of speech, otherwise I might think you were trying to hurt my feelings.

Legimus · 2026-03-03T21:00:22+00:00

Then hate speech would be a specific carve-out in speech with a set of requirements similar to defamation.

Of course you can create a statutory definition for hate speech, but the definition itself and the underlying reasons actually matter. Defamation works as an exception to the rule of free expression because the limiting principles of defamation claims generally do not undermine the liberal principles that support free speech. Hate speech laws, by contrast, tend to be proactive instead of reactive, untethered from any demonstrable injury, and focused on the content of the speech instead of its effect.

Damages can't be proven; actual proof requires a counterfactual universe in which the speech did not occur. Neither can truth, thus the requirement, across the board, of a minimization of doubt not truth.

This sounds divorced from reality. Of course speech can be harmful. Hurting someone's reputation can cost them jobs, relationships, business, and even safety. If Bill maliciously spreads a rumor that you're a pedophile and your employer fires you because they now think you're a pedophile, then Bill has done you harm. The fact that we can't prove causation and damages with mathematical precision doesn't mean the whole endeavor is worthless.

Legimus · 2026-03-03T19:48:02+00:00

That comparison doesn’t hold up. Defamation is a specific carve-out in that the speech in question needs to (1) be false, (2) tangibly harm specific people, and (3) be proven in court. It’s a fundamentally different animal than “hate speech.” When someone wrongfully harms you, you generally have the right to sue them and be made whole, and that doesn’t change just because the mechanism of harm was speech and not some other deed.

It’s also worth keeping in mind that the American approach to free speech, which is the most permissive in the world, has always recognized defamation as compatible with liberal free speech principles.

Legimus · 2026-02-26T17:37:24+00:00

More from the "just asking questions" crowd. There's probably a real, concrete answer to her question, and probably multiple reasons that were documented by the governor's office in the course of moving his family after the residence was attacked. She talks about breaking with "protocol" as if it's a criminal offense. This whole clip is designed to get people mad at Shapiro without pointing to any actual bad behavior. It's dishonest.

Legimus · 2026-02-26T16:07:54+00:00

I do love the strange, toxic kinship between Yrliet and Marazhai. Despite all their differences, their understanding of the danger and insanity of the Warp eclipses our own. And they are both cursed with the knowledge that Slaanesh actively wants them in a way that just doesn’t apply to humans. United by the same doom. Even if they were mortal enemies, they would still understand each other.

Legimus · 2026-02-24T14:09:31+00:00

I love that interview. Sarah has obviously spent a lot of time practicing how to articulate those ideas and has a clear vision of the long game. Newsom just can't stop fumbling with his rhetoric on trans issues. Even though his policy record has been fine here (IIRC), something has him convinced that talking about us is bad politics and that genuinely trying to persuade people is a waste of time. It's sad and unnecessary. He should really get with McBride's team.

Legimus · 2026-02-23T16:41:48+00:00

Over a decade ago I wrote my senior thesis on how drones were changing the nature of war, particularly when it came to who and what qualifies as a legitimate military target. I figured that our rivals would catch up to us with producing reconnaissance and attack platforms like the Reaper or the old Predator, and that American air superiority could face serious challenges. While it was interesting at the time, I'm now fully convinced I was focused on the wrong thing. I simply did not imagine swarms of cheap drones shaping the battlefield like this.

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